San Diego’s Seth Smith celebrates with his teammates after his game-winning solo home run off Twins reliever Anthony Swarzak during the 10th inning at Target Field in Minneapolis on August 6, 2014. The Padres defeated the Twins 5-4 in 10 innings. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Warming up in the bullpen past center field, Twins right-hander Anthony Swarzak briefly thought he wouldn’t have to take Target Field’s mound Wednesday.

With the score tied at four in the bottom of the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres, he had perhaps the best view of what was certainly the walk-off hit from teammate Eduardo Escobar.

“Matter of fact,” Swarzak said, “I started screaming, ‘Yeah!’ I thought that was the game. And then the ball hung up the air …”

And then Alexi Amarista, wheeling from his infield position to the back of centerfield, gathered Escobar’s hard line drive over his shoulder. The highlight-reel effort forced Swarzak to simmer and enter.

Against his first batter, he surrendered what would be the decisive solo shot to Seth Smith. The Twins (51-61) were unable to get their fourth straight victory in the 5-4 loss to the interleague foe.

“I think if I throw up a zero there, we go back out and score,” said Swarzak, who was charged with the loss.

“If” was a word muttered often in the clubhouse.

If all went according to the Twins’ recent winning formula, it wouldn’t have come down to Swarzak’s relief at all. Even the surest component of all in that formula, the all-star closer Glen Perkins with a 90 percent save success rate coming into the contest, couldn’t come through. His fourth blown save of the season was in the form an RBI sacrifice fly from Everth Cabrera that tied the game.

“But we shouldn’t have been in that situation,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We should’ve scored a lot more runs today. We just didn’t get it done.”

The team that has stacked up 39 runs and 64 hits through the first five games of August was 3-for-16 hitting with runners in scoring position. Pinch-hitter Kurt Suzuki, having reached second on a sacrifice bunt by Jordan Schafer, was the final Twins player stranded after Eduardo Nunez’s pop out to end the game in the 10th inning after three hours and 45 minutes of play.

For right-hander Kevin Correia (5-13), tied for the most losses in the majors this season, it seemed the tables might turn. Coming into the game with only five of 66 American League starters getting a worse run support average per inning, he got assistance early.

In the opening inning, third baseman Trevor Plouffe clubbed his first homer in 18 games, a two-run shot to left. In the fifth, Eduardo Escobar extended the Twins’ advantage to 3-1 by slapping a single to score Kennys Vargas.

Pitching against his former team from his native city, Correia surrendered two of his three earned runs and two of his five hits in the next inning, his last.

“He hung in there pretty doggone good,” Gardenhire said.

Plouffe’s RBI single in the bottom of the sixth put the Twins ahead 4-3 and gave Correia a winning chance. But in his second consecutive quality start, after holding the Kansas City Royals to one run over six innings July 31, Correia would once again get a no-decision.

He shrugged when he was asked if he had done enough.

“I fee like we should’ve scored a lot more runs, but I also feel like I gave up a couple runs where I should’ve made better pitches,” he said. “I feel like the game should’ve been, you know, 6 to 1, but we ended up losing.

“There’s always things you can take from each side. It’s easy to see how you could’ve won a game after you didn’t. That’s how it is pretty much every time you lose a game.”

The Twins will begin a four-game set on the road Thursday night against the AL-leading Oakland A’s.

“They get after you; it’s nonstop with those guys,” Gardenhire said. “It’s going to be a tough four games out there.”

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in Sports

The Vikings reportedly will open next season where the last one ended in bitter disappointment. Minnesota will play at Philadelphia in the NFL opener on Thursday, Sept. 6, according to report Monday by sportscaster Howard Eskin, an Eagles sideline reporter. The Vikings lost 38-7 at Philadelphia in January's NFC Championship Game. The Eagles went on to win Super Bowl LII...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Twins second baseman Brian Dozier always makes an effort to bond with his keystone partner at shortstop. Since the second half of 2016, that has been young Jorge Polanco. So it was with great sadness that Dozier was forced to react Monday morning to news of Polanco’s 80-game steroid suspension, handed down on Sunday by Major...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Twins third baseman Miguel Sano has known Jorge Polanco since they were 12-year-old baseball prodigies in the famed town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. So it was an emotional conversation on Sunday evening between the two teammates, friends for half their young lives, after Major League Baseball announced an 80-game steroid suspension...

EUGENE, Ore. — Sabrina Ionescu had 29 points, nine assists and seven rebounds and the second-seeded Oregon Ducks advanced to the Sweet 16 with a 101-73 victory over No. 10 Minnesota in the second round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament on Sunday night. It was the 11th straight victory for the Ducks, who are headed to the round of...

Since signing with the Timberwolves, Derrick Rose has insisted he still has something left in his 29-year-old legs. He proved as much Sunday night. After three underwhelming showings with the Wolves, Rose provided a spark for Minnesota during a 129-120 loss to Houston at Target Center. "Obviously, he's rejuvenated," Jimmy Butler said before the game. "I see him out there...

One word succinctly describes what’s transpired so far in the NCAA Tournament: Madness. But even that’s probably underselling it. A comeback for the ages by Nevada. An entire region left without a Top 4 seed in the Sweet 16 for the first time in tourney history. The 16-seed winner UMBC, falling short in its attempt to extend its historic run...